A Cautionary Tale of Taxes and Confusion

    Not falling for scams and scammers doesn't sound like it should be a hard job. They're usually obvious right? With misspelled emails asking for credit card numbers or account information, a lot of scams don't require genius level brilliance to avoid. Unfortunately, that's not the only kind of scammer out there and what I found out recently is that people on the internet don't have to be scammers to be detrimental to your emotional and financial well-being.

    A few weeks ago I was messaged on social media. Usually I ignore any comments from unknown folks, especially men, but eventually I got around to looking at the guy's profile and reading his message. He claimed to be an American tax professional and his name checked out on a database of this certain branch of tax professional. While I assumed this was one more American abroad trying to make ends meet, there are some things that didn't seem right with this guy.

Stuck? Yes. Swelling, not so much. Hope, even less.

    I asked some questions. He answered a few and completely ignored the rest. I'm not sure if this is because he was so busy with other clients or if it was some cunning plan I didn't understand. It's also possible that he was so used to the Japanese technique of avoiding negative answers by pretending the questions don't exist, but from someone claiming to be an American professional, I still found this behavior disquieting.

    Honestly, this is where our communication should have ended, but I give people the benefit of the doubt and continued trying to work with him. I even supplied him with a few sensitive data points regarding myself and my daughter. A few emails after the sensitive data was given, I felt the need to stop associating with him entirely. While none of his interactions were negative or direct enough to constitute harassment, his emails reminded me of abusive boyfriends I had the misfortune of encountering in the past. His emails caused a serious anxiety episode that I am still dealing with the ramifications of, and when I recognized the pain it was causing me, I terminated the need for contact.

I hope that's true, randomly American shirt.

    After I told him I would no longer be requiring his services, I had to ask repeatedly for my sensitive information to be deleted, something he ignored then eventually declined to do. It has occurred to me that a proper con artist would lie and agree to delete the information or flatly never reply at all. I am still frustrated by the puzzling nature of these interactions but have no way to get better answers than my assumptions.

    While our negative interactions did not end there, the most important lessons were already learned. It's difficult when you're living abroad to fully trust your instincts because you should know that not everything you encounter will fit into how you've always seen the world before. At the same time, if someone's behavior bothers you, stop and walk away before you give them access to information you can't take back. If someone claims to be from your country, holding them to the same standards you would anyone else from your country is justified. No matter where you are from, just because someone claims to be from the same place doesn't mean they aren't capable of being horrible.

No matter how badly you mess things up, there are still rainbows, even if they are faint.

    The real answer here is that if a professional of any kind pursues you on social media, odds are at best they are desperate. Desperate people do not make good resources when it comes to specific and important information like filing your taxes. At worst, they aren't who they say you are and you shouldn't converse with them at all. Either way, it's just safer to do your own taxes and ignore strangers who message you on social media.